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Children and young teens stumble upon porn accidentally or through curiosity. Expastors.com states that by the time a child is 11 years old, they would have already been exposed to porn. Some children are embarrassed by what they see and never venture beyond that moment, creating a type of trauma, while others are intrigued by the sexual acts displayed before them and begin to explore the very animated, fantastical, and unrealistic world of pornography.

For individuals who watch porn, the characters and their actions are enticing but what children and adults don’t understand about pornography is that it’s not real. The milkman, pizza delivery guy, and the naughty maid aren’t real people. These characters are just that, characters. They don’t require courting, games of twenty-one questions, or dates; but in the real world, knowing intimate details about your spouses life is sexier than the skimpiest lingerie.

Whether indulging for hours or for minutes, a long-standing relationship with pornography begins to desensitize the viewer. What starts as an occupation of your free time spans into engulfing other important hours of your life. Basic guy and girl porn no longer meets the individuals need for thrilling pleasure. Wanting raunchier and more explicit images sends porn addicts digging through dirtier and dirtier pornos until they’re able to once again get off. This is because, like any other addiction, the addicted individual needs to increase their intake in order to continually satiate. By nature, addicts are always looking for a greater high.

Humans were designed for connection. Anything that causes you to live with a hunger that forces you into isolation, is something you need to give up. I want to help you regain control of your life again. Being weaned off of pornography won’t be easy, but it is necessary. We will establish healthy alternatives that are productive and reality based. Reinforcing these healthy alternatives will give you the control to make better choices when temptation arises. Coaching will assist you in how to deal with moments of weakness, transitioning, and life post addiction.

Unhappy people are easy to recognize. They share a common lack of identity, path, and/or aspirations. I’m not talking about “the late bloomer”. We all have that neighbor with a 26-year-old son who’s been trying to “find” himself since graduating college.

Unhappy people are unhappy because they aren’t trying to find themselves. They actually believe it when their mammal brains, the brain we’re born with, tell them that they are meant and designed for unhappiness.

Some people are unhappy because of a bio-chemical imbalance. Somewhere down the line, they’ve compromised themselves, or they’ve entered a structure (relationship, contractual agreement, or professional position) that has forced them to live a life that’s contrary to their inner self. These people could potentially suffer from mild, chronic, or acute unhappiness. Chronic unhappiness potentially directs its host to a life of avoidance by means of addiction while acute unhappiness forces its host into a world of depression.

But, unhappiness is not hopelessness.

Action must be taken to help pinpoint the root of unhappiness in your life. Figuring it out is half the battle. Could it be that you’re still holding on to a past hurt? Failing at the life plan someone else has made for you? or listening to the negativity of your mammal brain? Believing that you can move from where you are to where you want to be is vital. With my help, I can help identify what’s preventing you from moving forward in your rich and meaningful life.

Experience–dependent neuroplasticity, the part of our brain that learns from our experiences, forms our personality when in the beta and gamma state. This means we can also reorganize, and, as a result, change our personalities. So long as what’s being changed is philosophically and truly embraced an entire person can be turned around. The goal is not to get you to be someone else, but to get you to your very unique self.

Addiction isn’t a pretty word. It’s, unfortunately, so often visually associated with junkies and emotionally tied to rebellion. Compassion is a helping hand never fully extended because, let’s be honest, assumptions keep us hesitant to fully committing ourselves to helping those who can’t help themselves.

In early years of development, our frontal lobes aren’t fully formed. This means all we know is adopted from the environment surrounding us. If those who influence us have unhealthy ways of coping, we might also. Addiction, contrary to what is thought, can be a learnt behavior. In a family where words are kept behind glasses of Bourbon, there’s a chance drinking could occupy the space reserved for conversation. Drugs are used for coping with the stress of family, work, identity, and everyday life. Addictions are a physical manifestation of an inner mewing. For many addicts, the use of drugs was a form of self-medication, but mutated into self-mutilation.

Some addictions aren’t even drug based. There can be addictions to sex, love, compulsions, and gossip. Imagine the inability to keep a secret. Addictions are more psychologically than neurologically rooted. Meaning they’re more mind than brain based. Compulsions are usually neurological. I have had tremendous success integrating Life Coaching and Hypnotherapy through neuroplasticity, but it’s important to identify the underlining irritations. So many problems can be solved and resolved with hypnosis.

When I think of the 4th of July weekend coming up, I think of hotdogs, burgers, grills, the sun out, frozen fruit drinks and most importantly, some very needed family time.

Needless to say, I know there are people out there that fear this time of year and many other holidays like this centered around family gatherings and food (Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Years, Birthdays, and the like). They fear the idea of having to eat in front of family and friends. There are people tormented by the thought of having to force themselves to eat to appear healthy and normal on the outside.

The truth is, anorexia is hardly ever about weight. It doesn’t matter if you’re 80 pounds or 180 pounds, an anorexic will still feel that they are never at their perfect weight. Anorexia, bulimia, binge eating, and other related eating disorders are a form of addiction, very similar in root to gambling, alcoholism, drugs, smoking, sex, etc. – it is centered around attaining the ‘high’ that makes you feel good/relieved.

Young girls and boys on the onset of anorexia and bulimia purge because of how amazing it makes them feel afterwards. Fast forward a few years, it turns into a habit, an addiction no longer controllable. The troubling truth about habit is its stronghold over our lives. It’s great that some of us have great habits, like waking up early in the morning and sticking to our awesome workout regimes but there are a lot of us who fight head on with daily negative habits. Sometimes we turn to our addictions to distract us from the real issue we are dealing with on the inside.

Anorexia, like all other addictions, takes your good qualities and uses them against yourself in destructive ways. It will take your amazing persistence and push you to continue to purge and starve. It will take your strong determination and use it to push to to achieve visible ribcages. It will take your unique creativity and use it to create stories to hide the real reason as to why you are “not hungry”. It will take your hardworking, disciplined mindset and use it to fight for the wrong things.

I want to emphasize the power of our brains and what we can do change the way we think. Hypnosis can help you center your thoughts on what is truly important and meaningful in life. You have to realize that your body, your organs, and your actions/habits are all controlled by your brain. Your heart cannot beat and pump blood without the command of the brain. Likewise, your thoughts don’t end up where they do without the command of the brain. Come see me. And I don’t say this lightly. I know how real the fear is for those that battle with this every day, through every meal.

Addiction has the power to take root in your brain and branch out, affecting all aspects of your life (your relationships, your daily choices, your daily functions, your daily mood, and the list goes on). What I mean by this is, once you become addicted, or in other words, dependent on a substance, person, action, thing, etc., to gratify your needs, you are no longer in control of what is best for you. When you become dependent on a personal addiction, be it drugs, alcohol, sex, exercise, gambling, cosmetic surgery, food, etc., your brain is no longer able to freely exercise life’s most profound gift, the gift of free will.

In the case of drug addictions, drugs cause large amounts of dopamine (the happy hormone) to be released into your brain in areas that foster motivation, judgment, rational decision making, and self control. When such large amounts are released, your brain learns to adapt. Thus, as a result, the brain becomes less sensitive to the smaller amounts of dopamine that is naturally released when your are happy, rewarded, excited, etc. When this happens, all of life’s healthy releases of the dopamine are no longer enough to keep a person motivated.

I see clients all the time that blame themselves for where they are in the course of their life. There is no addiction that Clinical Hypnosis can’t cure. People have to understand that once a person is addicted, they can’t help but to feel that they are no longer in control of their actions. They repeatedly tell themselves that they need what they are addicted to in order to function. Your body functions the way your brain speaks to it. With Clinical Hypnosis, I work with clients to re-orient their way of thought. Call me at (212) 599-3195 to book an appointment (I offer a free 5-10 min consultation) and we’ll work through it.